Covid-wise, things went well with only two hiccups. First, the lady sitting next to me on the Atlanta flight was quite sternly reprimanded by a schoolmarmish flight attendant for failing to restore her mask after she took a bite of her breakfast muffin. Fortunately, I’m podded with the lady in question so I’m not at any great risk.
The bigger Covid impact was at the Thrifty Rent-a-Car desk. Because they had only three car-prep people who were vaccinated for Covid, we were facing a two-hour wait for our car. The nice Thrifty lady suggested we check out the competition. Sure enough, National had an SUV for about the same money. Problem solved.
But not really. Instead of cruising California in a Mustang convertible with a cute girl at my side with her hair blowing in the wind it’ll be a soulless truck I’ll be driving. Sigh.
OK, she’s silver-haired now but back in the day she was blond, before she dyed it red. Still kinda cute, though.
Other than that, the trip has been an experience that would warm the heart of Dr. Faucci. I don’t think we’ve seen a person without a mask all day, not in any of the three airports, not in the airplanes, not on the streets of San Francisco, not in the R&G Lounge in Chinatown.
We’re booked at the Westin St. Francis hotel on Union Square, a fashionable district with lots of big-name shopping stores. We picked the St Francis because this is the hotel my mom, Professor Lilian Libby Rick, stayed while giving a learned presentation at the Modern Language Association back in 1978. Judy and I, purely by chance, stayed in the same hotel for a convention at exactly the same time so we got to sightsee with her between our various professional duties.
We checked in around 3 PM and by 4 PM were ready to hit the pavement. Chinatown is about a mile’s walk, a little more than half-way to the Coit Tower towards Fisherman’s Warf.
The front desk guy (no concierge at the St. Francis these days) recommended the restaurant, his favorite, and especially the salted fried crab dish. The crab was going for $60 and so we settled for a beef and turnip clay pot dish and one that featured steam clams in a scrambled egg like concoction. We’re always one to try something new and the clay pot proved the virtue of being gastronomically adventuresome. The clams? Not so much. A great thought but the two flavors don’t mix well, we thought. We should have sold another share of Tesla and gone for the crabs I guess.
So now we’re fading (it’s 7 PM here, 10 PM God’s time in Tampa) and we were up at 5. We’ll get to bed as soon as the sun sets. Unless the city lights keep us up. We’ll see.
Today’s pictures include some Judy took from the airplane window as we flew between the Rockies and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. There’s some I snapped from out hotel room and as we walked to Chinatown.
I, Judy, had never flown over the southern part of Colorado. It was amazing with the colors and the contours. It seemed absolutely desolate. I really could not see any habitation from the plane. We gradually moved into the snow-capped mountains of the Sierra Nevadas. It really pointed out to me how varied the natural landscape is in this beautiful country.
